I was listening to a LOST podcast last week, and a couple of ideas were brought up that I found very interesting and wanted to briefly discuss.

The first is regarding Sun, specifically the fact that she is stuck in the present while Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sayid all went back to 1977. Someone brought up the idea that the reason Ben didn't go back to 1977 was because he was already on the island in 1977. So perhaps Sun was already on the island in 1977 as well. To take it even further, perhaps Sun was the baby with Pierre Chang:

This certainly isn't a foolproof theory, but it does answer a couple of questions. First, there has been (and will continue to be) lots of speculation on who the baby is. I'd say it's safe to assume it's someone we already know, it's not like the LOST writers to just show us a random baby and then never mention it again. Second, it tells us why Sun didn't go back with everyone else. There is undoubtedly a reason why, we just don't know what it is.

Now, what do we also know that seems to counter this theory? Well, for starters, Locke didn't go back, and he's not on the island in 1977. However, Locke was also dead, so that may have prevented him from going back. Also, Frank didn't go back. Now Frank is an interesting case. He was never on Oceanic 815, he came to the island on the freighter, so you might think that him being on the freighter precludes him from going back to 1977. However, Daniel & Miles both ended up back there (Granted they weren't on the Ajira flight, they were already on the island when they flashed back). Also, I've always felt that Frank being on Ajira 316 was a "course correction" in Frank's life, considering he was supposed to be the pilot for Oceanic 815.

So, should Frank have gone back? I think I lean towards yes, since Miles and Daniel went back. Does this mean Frank was on the island in 1977? We have seen no evidence that he was, but Frank is also a largely unknown quantity. Really, outside of the fact that he was a pilot for Oceanic and was supposed to fly flight 815, we know practically nothing about him, including why he was chosen to be on the freighter headed towards the island. It's certainly possible that he's been there before, and if that's the case, it's probably a good bet Sun was there as well.

Idea/theory #2 that was thrown out there was regarding the state of the island when Sun and Frank got there. The dock they arrived on, the Dharma barracks, completely abandoned. And not just vacant, but it looks like whoever was there up and left and didn't think twice about how things looked when they left. It seemed a little odd to me that the barracks looked so disheveled, considering the Others were still on the island and it would only make sense for them to go back to living there after everyone left. So someone suggested that the island that Sun and Frank are on is set in an alternate present than what we saw the last time everyone was on the island in 2004.

We've leaned on Daniel Faraday to explain the rules on time travel, what can and can't be done, etc., and while he seems to be of the idea that what happened in the past happened, and you can't change it, our knowledge of the rules are fairly vague, so at this point I'm not willing to rule out anything when it comes to the timeline of the island.

Widmore spoke of a war to Locke. Could it be that the barracks we saw Sun and Frank in are a result of that war in the past?

Let's take a look at a couple of screenshots from last week's episode:

First, the "Processing Center" circa 1977:

Now, the "Processing Center" circa 2007:

I know the last three pictures are a little dark, but it would certainly appear that these are the same two buildings, yes? The doors are the same, the hanging signs appear to be the same, the general layout with the big open floor seems to be the same. Well, let's take a look at a few screen shots from The Man From Tallahassee, when Kate was captured and put into their rec room:

Certainly looks like the same building, doesn't it? Again, the doors and window are the same, the light switches next to the door are the same as in 1977, same open floor layout. At the very least in real life they used the same building; whether or not it's the same building on the show remains to be seen.

But if it is the same building? Then how do you explain it going from looking like the processing center for new recruits in 1977, turned into a rec room with pool table, pinball machine, etc. used by the Others in 2004, turned into an abandoned (and trashed) processing center in 2007?

Again, this isn't a foolproof theory by any means. There is still the matter of the runway that Frank landed on, which as far as we know was built by the Others (They had Kate & Sawyer helping out in Season 3). And it could just be that the rec room the Others had was in a similar looking building within the barracks, and the processing center was just left to rot somewhere else. It's certainly plausible, since all the houses they have look the same anyways. But, it's possible.